Quest for the Codes
by Jenwryn
Summary: Elizabeth/John established. Meg/McKay UST. Sequel to "Elizabeth's Email". Studying the device McKay brought back from the Ancient Area 51 they find the answer to all their problems. Or not. Meanwhile, Meaghan is keeping secrets. My MegAU. Edited July 2008
1. Happy Birthday, Colonel

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_A/N: __All recognisable characters and settings belong to the creators of Stargate Atlantis. Meaghan Monahan and the AA51, on the other hand, belong to me. For the record, this story is the sequel to **Elizabeth's Email**, which it would probably be helpful to read before you embark on this one. Please remember to review!  
_

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**I: Happy Birthday, Colonel...  
**

* * *

Elizabeth Weir, independent woman and leader of the Atlantis expedition, murmured something whilst only semi-conscious, then blinked open her eyes and tried to stretch in a way that wouldn't wake John. Sprawled across her body like an ungainly teenager, he simply grunted in his sleep and shifted in his limbs into positions even more uncomfortable for her. Elizabeth gave up, sunk back into her pillows, and glanced at her watch. 4 a.m. It was summer in Atlantis and already the faintest, finest signs of the approaching dawn could be seen colouring the ocean beyond her window. She supposed that she ought to get up, now that she was awake anyway. She'd never been terribly good at sleeping in, even as a child, but, on the other hand, she didn't want to disturb John. Not that it would normally have bothered her much – it wasn't as though the city was going to run itself and there was always work waiting for her. But Elizabeth knew perfectly well that today was his birthday and if a man couldn't sleep until he was good and ready on his birthday, then when could he?

Besides, it also happened to be her day off and she had decided for once to actually treat it as such. Of course, it was no coincidence that she'd made sure the two days coincided.

Elizabeth stretched awkwardly again and this time wriggled a little from beneath him to sit with her back resting against the bed-head. She rubbed the sleep from the corners of her eyes. Truth be told, John was a rotten sharer when it came to beds. He was always taking up much more room than was due to him and she couldn't count the amount of times that she woke with his arm flung over her face. She had gotten quite practised at shoving him back out of what she considered to be her space, but today... She shook her head at herself and ran her hand ever so gently along the beautiful, bare line of his shoulders.

It had been a little over three months since they had returned from the Ancient Area 51 (John's nickname, as usual, had stuck) and Elizabeth had finally admitted her feelings for Atlantis' CO. They'd been sleeping together since then but she couldn't say for sure when it was that he had actually started staying all night. In the beginning that had never happened. They were so determined to keep their professional lives, well, professional, and it was embarrassing, when there was an emergency, to both emerge sleepily and stumbling from the same room. But, some time in the last month or so, they had grown lazy with it. And, of course, he wasn't _always _there when she woke, no more than she was always there. Life in Atlantis was much too unpredictable for that. Sometimes a whole row of days would pass where neither of them even slept in an actual bed. There were more than a few times when she found herself waking, sore-necked, at her desk. And then he was regularly off-world. But still, her bed had somehow become his bed, and that was all there was too it.

It niggled at Elizabeth, just a little. Her work ethic was still disturbed, if not outraged, by it, despite her best intentions to just relax and roll with her emotions. It wasn't as though there were _technically _any regulations restricting their relationship – she wasn't military and, in some senses, he was under neither her command nor her employ. But, on the other hand, there _were _unspoken presumptions… Which was why they had tried to be discreet. Well. She had, anyway.

Elizabeth sighed and wondered if John would be terribly upset if she pushed him away and got up to take a shower. Sitting in bed and doing nothing just wasn't her strong point, though she _was _improving. But, at that point, she realised that a pair of not-quite-awake eyes had focussed upon her and she smiled warmly. 'Good morning, you,' she said in a gently teasing tone. 'I was just wondering if I should nudge your dead weight off me and get up.'

John groaned slightly and buried his face against her stomach, his stubble scratching her soft skin in a now-familiar way. 'Wha' time is it?' his lips asked against her bellybutton.

Elizabeth let her watch drop from her hand into the gaps between their pillows, before curling the tips of her fingers through his hair, her knuckles grazing the back of his neck where the skin was extra warm from sleeping. 'I have no idea,' she fibbed with a smile. 'But I do know what day it is.'

He must have caught something in her tone, because he looked up at her, blinked long and slow, then smiled contentedly.

'Happy birthday, Colonel,' she murmured.

His smile became a grin as he reached up and pulled her back down amongst the sheets.


	2. The Data Device

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**II: The Data Device  
**

* * *

Just because it was Elizabeth's day off, and his birthday, didn't mean that they could lounge in bed forever – as much as John might have fancied the idea. Which was why 6:45 a.m. found the Lieutenant Colonel jogging happily towards the mess hall to grab some breakfast. He wasn't the least bit surprised to see that McKay was already there, surrounded by mountains of notes and a precarious tower of empty coffee cups. It wasn't uncommon for McKay to move in some time during the night and simply forget to leave. John _was, _however, somewhat more surprised to see the linguist-cum-paleoanthropologist, Doctor Monahan, equally surrounded by books and notes and seated at McKay's side. It was no secret that the Canadian had sworn never to work with the girl again after she'd managed to de-program a puddlejumper and it had taken three days and the joint efforts of both Zelenka and McKay himself to get it up and running again. John wondered what could have brought about the change of heart now and, grinning, he ambled over carrying a bowl of cereal. 'Good morning, sunshines,' he greeted them cheerfully. 'And what brings you to the mess hall other than the fine cuisine this city has to offer?'

McKay looked at up him, irritated. 'Well, _someone's_ in a good mood. I'm only here because the coffee machine in my lab has stopped working and I can't be bothered walking back and forth each time I need caffeine. And as for the cuisine around here…' he trailed off, obviously considering _that_ topic to be beneath him. Then he stopped, and sniffed the air. 'What sort of cereal is that?'

John shook his head. 'Don't bother asking, 'cause it's the last bowlful and you're not getting any.'

McKay threw down the text he had been holding and looked outraged. 'Those _deceitful_―' He searched for a suitably violent invective, failed, and spat out, 'those deceitful _people _behind that counter told me last week that it was all gone. Are you saying they kept some for you?'

John smirked. 'Maybe if you were nicer to them, Rodney, they might give you treats too.'

At that moment Elizabeth appeared with a cup of coffee in one hand and a piece of marmalade toast in the other, and smiled at John as though it were the first time she'd seen him that morning. Rodney nodded at her to acknowledge her presence, before continuing, in an insulted voice, 'I_ am _nice to them. Just yesterday I told one of them that I liked how she'd done her hair.'

Meaghan snorted. 'You called her Emma and her name's Nomusa. That kind of spoilt the compliment, don't you think?'

McKay ignored her pointedly. 'I still don't see why you should get special treatment, Sheppard.'

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. 'Don't you know? It's our Lieutenant Colonel's birthday.'

Meaghan smiled up at the pair of them. 'How old?'

John winked at her and said, between spoonfuls, 'One year older than yesterday I suppose,' and then glanced with a shrug at Elizabeth whose lips were twitching with amusement. Atlantis' CO pulled up a chair, shoved some notes aside to make space for his bowl, and sat down. Elizabeth slid into the seat beside him and drank her coffee. McKay, who appeared to have suddenly realised who it was that he had mechanically nodded at, glanced back up and looked at her properly for the first time. 'Elizabeth,' he said, 'It's your day off, isn't it?'

She nodded, curious to see why he would want to know.

He seemed pleased. 'Good. Then you can help me with this translation.'

Elizabeth took a bite from her toast, chewed it contemplatively, then said, 'I presumed that that was what Doctor Monahan was doing, Rodney. Or have you two become study buddies?'

John chuckled, and Meaghan snorted again, but kept writing. McKay wore that pained expression that said, _yes, yes, have your fun... _'Ha, ha,' he commented aloud. 'But no, she just happens to be in my space.'

The linguist shook her head mildly, and rolled her eyes. _'_Plus, those are my textbooks he's using. I was hardly going to let _McKay _borrow _books _and not watch them, was I? He has no respect whatsoever for the printed word. God in heaven only knows what he might do to them. Use them as weights, or placemats, or to prop up a wonky table, or something.'

'And this is _you _talking?' Rodney snapped, and then looked back at Elizabeth. 'So, will you help?' he wheedled. 'I'm working on the data device that I fortuitously had in my hands when we were returned from the Ancient Area 51.'

John shook his head. 'McKay. If Elizabeth does your homework, that would entirely defeat the purpose of her having a day off, don't you think? Besides, it's my birthday. Today she's _my _dogsbody, not yours.'

Tugging one of his earlobes playfully, Elizabeth otherwise ignored him for the moment and looked at what McKay was working on. Then she paused, and admitted, 'Okay, I'm confused. I thought I asked Doctor Monahan to work on the data device, since it seems to be simply an information repository that needs translation. And _you_ were supposed to be working on finding the codes that would let us properly access the Ancient Area 51.'

McKay looked slightly annoyed. 'Yes, yes, but that's a dead end at the moment. I can't just pull the codes randomly out of my brain like a cat from a hat―' He watched with a pained expression as John burst out laughing and sent cereal flying across the table. 'What?' the Canadian demanded.

For a second John just coughed and laughed, with Elizabeth thumping him on the back, and then he managed, 'It's a rabbit, Rodney, a rabbit out of a hat. The catin the hat, now that's Doctor Suess.'

'Never heard of him,' said Rodney succinctly, then shook his laptop gently upside down to get rid of John's cereal, and continued, 'Anyway. In the meantime, I am working on the scientific aspects of the data in the information device. _She _might be able to put it into English, but that doesn't mean she understands what it's talking about.'

Meaghan looked piqued. 'I get most of it. The vast majority of it is history, actually. But _he _ignores all that.'

Elizabeth popped the last piece of her toast in her mouth, and wiped her hands surreptitiously on the thighs of her slacks; it was a bad habit, but she allowed herself a few. Then she leant forwards, genuinely interested, 'What sort of history?' Anything that could help her understand how the Ancients had thought, and viewed the universe at large, could only be useful to her.

Doctor Monahan put down the pen she had been writing with and thought for a second. 'Well, there's the story of how the Ancients came to this galaxy and decided to _seed new life where there appeared to be none—_'

'Which we already knew,' McKay reminded anyone who would listen.

The redhead looked at Rodney crossly until he dropped his gaze and went back to his work with an expression of dogged concentration on his face. Then she glanced at Elizabeth, smiled, and continued, 'Ah, there's also brief history of their existence here. And... er, well, for example, there's a summary of the archaeological records that the Ancients kept. It's always something that's been wondered about – I mean, you read some of Doctor Jackson's articles and there's always this clear question about why we haven't found more archaeological evidence of the Ancients in our own galaxy, on our own planet. And so it's quite interesting to read the notes they wrote about _this _galaxy. It seems they tended to work on the "leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photos" principle. There were always marked exceptions, of course, like with the Dorandans for example – although, I confess, I have to wonder if Project Arcturus isn't a perfect example of why they normally kept their R&D in the Ancient Area 51. And in general... Maybe they were conscious of what kind of an impact remains from their society would have on less-developed groups. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they didn't influence, it's like Doctor Jackson says in one of his essays—' She paused, glanced at Elizabeth's expression, then concluded in rapid summary, 'Anyway, you might like to read some of it yourself if you have time.'

McKay made a small, amused sound.

Elizabeth, who felt slightly sorry for the linguist and her run of bad luck, nodded. 'Yes. Of course.' She drank her coffee slowly, and touched John on the arm as he finished his cereal and stood up to go off on his morning rounds. 'I haven't forgotten it's your birthday,' she said quietly, with a warm smile. 'We'll get in that picnic that I promised you...'

He grinned, drawled, 'I'll hold you to that,' and sauntered off. Elizabeth watched him leave the mess hall and then she leant back in her chair and simply breathed in the sound of everyone coming and going – the ordinary, simple noises of everyday life on Atlantis.

Doctor Monahan's voice broke through her daydreaming with a loud, 'Now this _is_ interesting.'

Elizabeth watched as the linguist pushed her notes sideways towards Rodney, whose eyes skimmed the page quickly. He frowned, and looked as though he didn't want to agree with the girl, but felt compelled to. Thoroughly intrigued now, Elizabeth leant forwards, a questioning look upon her face. 'What's interesting?'

'These notes...' Rodney turned to the original text, his hands moving deftly over the small device, Meaghan nodding and watching as he read. Then he glanced up, his eyes wide. 'This is the log of an archaeological expedition, an expedition which was undertaken not long before the siege of Atlantis began and the Ancients abandoned the city. The log's actually incomplete; whoever was supposed to finish the record never did. It's as though the expedition members simply never got back to the city.'

Elizabeth tilted her head slightly to one side and concentrated. 'Are you saying that they were left stranded in the Pegasus Galaxy when all the others went to Earth?'

Rodney shook his head – nodded – then shrugged. 'Yes, maybe. I mean, there are lots of different explanations. They might have been killed by the Wraith, or come back and simply never updated their logs. I seriously doubt that archaeology would have been their top priority given the circumstances. But, either way, they might have left all their equipment and research data on this planet where the dig was. There's a gate address here. There could be all sorts of information, Elizabeth, and we know that at least one of the team members had access to the artificial world we found, since they were working there on this device...'

Elizabeth nodded. 'So that information could include the codes that we need to make the sphere work properly and access the Ancient Area 51 ourselves. Yes, I see where you're going with this.'

He smiled. 'It's a long shot, but worth a try.'

Meaghan glanced at her notes again, shuffled them, then added, 'And regardless – this dig that the Ancients were conducting... It would be _incredible_ to see if anything is still there from that. They were looking at early human remains dated from after they first arrived in this galaxy. The chance to compare that kind of data with the stuff we already have on early humans from Earth...' Her eyes gleamed.

Elizabeth nodded. 'And what if these Ancients did survive? How do we know that there isn't a small colony holed up on this planet? Maybe they got stuck there, or maybe they believed that Atlantis had fallen and didn't dare come back?' She was talking to herself more than to them, processing her thoughts out loud, and then nodded a second time. 'You're both right. Either way, it's worth a look.' She pushed her chair back, stood up, and smiled. 'Put a team together, Rodney – oh, and make sure Meaghan here is in it. I know how you two feel about each other, but you get equal credit on this thinking this one through, and I'd like both your brains with me.'

They looked at her askance. McKay asked, 'With _you_?'

She quirked an eyebrow upwards. 'What? It's my day off and I rather think I would fancy a trip off-world.'

Laughing at their bewildered expressions, she moved away to gather some things together – and to radio John. It might be a nice planet to have that picnic she'd promised him.


	3. A Planet Called Alba

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**III: A Planet Called Alba**

* * *

Some few hours later, Elizabeth, John, Doctors McKay and Monahan, and a rather bemused-looking Ronon, found themselves in a puddlejumper about to leave Atlantis via the stargate. When they had tried the gate address recorded in the data device, they had had no luck. Either it was gone, or buried, or off-line, or for some other reason unresponsive. Personally, Elizabeth wasn't upset because it fed her hope that there might still be a settlement of Ancients out there. As small and unlikely as that hope might be, the fact that the stargate didn't work would certainly offer up a potential explanation as to why they (if they existed) had never returned to Atlantis.

So, instead, they planned to gate through to a closer planet and then fly the last stretch of the journey with the jumper. It would make a slightly longer trip of it, but Elizabeth didn't mind. She glanced at John, who sat beside her in the "driver's" seat, and watched the expression of cocky concentration on his face as the gate was dialled and they slipped through. She liked to watch him fly, though she hadn't had much opportunity really: it was his natural element.

The planet they were heading to had been referred to as Alba in the Ancient Lantean records. When McKay had mentioned the name, Meaghan had waxed lyrical about the connections with the Latin, while John had simply smirked and asked, 'Jessica?'

McKay hadn't deigned to respond to either of them. Now, seated at the back of the jumper, the physicist was eating a sandwich with one hand and continuing his research with the other, a laptop balanced precariously upon his knees. Meaghan also had a sheath of notes in her hands where she sat beside him but, to be honest, she hadn't looked at them since she'd entered the jumper – in reality, her full attention was riveted upon Ronon. She stared at him as he sat with his eyes shut and his head rested back against the walls. He hadn't objected to coming, since it was Sheppard who'd asked him ('just in case it's not as simple as the three Doctors presume'), although archaeology wasn't exactly his thing. Meaghan hadn't had a chance to study the Satedan up close before and now she was suddenly rather glad that Teyla had been busy on the mainland. The Australian girl had become good friends with the Athosian woman and, since she suspected there was more than a little chemistry between the two Pegasus locals, she wouldn't have felt so free to ogle like she was doing now if Teyla had come along for the ride. As it was…

McKay glanced up, saw her dreamy, staring expression, and snorted derisively.

Through the gate and out the other side, John manoeuvred the jumper upwards and soon they had entered space on their journey to Alba. He glanced at Elizabeth, who was still watching him with a mixture of amusement and contentment, and then he leant back around in his seat and said cheerily to his passengers, 'Now, you all play nicely back there. The adults want to talk.' And he hit the control that whirred shut the doors between the cockpit and the rest of the jumper.

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at him.

John looked pained. 'What? Is it too much to ask that I get to spend some time alone with you without McKay and co watching? It _is _my birthday.'

She let a smile flicker onto her face. 'You're going to play that for all it's worth, aren't you?' When he nodded with a smirk, she glanced out the cockpit window and then at his hands resting loosely on the controls. 'Tell me,' she said. 'Just how much concentration does it take for you to fly this thing? Will it fall out of the sky – figuratively speaking – if you get distracted?'

He grinned. 'I doubt it. Why, what'd you have in mind?'

His eyes opened wide as she showed him…

Back in the rear of the puddlejumper, Rodney worked grumpily, Ronon dozed, and Meaghan shot a knowing look at the closed doors – after all, she knew what _she'd_ be doing if she got the Colonel in an enclosed space on his birthday – and then went back to the highly agreeable sport of Ronon-watching.

* * *

It only took three-quarters of an hour for the journey from the second stargate to Alba. Nor did it take long, once they had arrived, for John to run a scan and pinpoint exactly where the only sign of obvious construction on the whole planet was. As he said, 'It's that or nothing.' By that time, of course, they had opened the jumper's internal doors again and McKay, after casting them both a suspicious look, came up front and studied the map spread out before them on the display screen.

'Well,' he mused. 'It certainly _looks _Ancient.'

'And how can you tell that from a map, Rodney?' demanded John, though he still had the traces of a smile around his face.

McKay crossed his arms across his chest. 'Well, it doesn't look _Wraith_ anyway. Satisfied?'

And indeed, when they landed, the main remaining building bore all the typical characteristics of having been built by the Ancients. Hugging the base of a high range of rainforest-covered mountains, there had only been just enough space near it to land the jumper. The only reason that that space had been there, they realised when they exited their little ship, was because the ground was littered with the stone remains of other buildings, thus stopping plants from growing. It seemed that there had once been a small settlement there, not just the one larger structure that had remained.

Elizabeth wandered around the ruins happily, while Meaghan and Rodney – with Ronon between them in case of unpleasant surprises (and also to stop them bickering) – went off to find the entrance to the primary building. Of any supposed surviving Ancients there was no sign. Elizabeth had to admit to herself that it had been a rather wild hope. Still, she wasn't all that disappointed. She was having a day off, in pleasant company, and seeing a new planet; what was there not to like?

Still, she jumped slightly as John crept up behind her and nuzzled his face into her neck, protesting and wriggling from his grasp. He looked mildly insulted and said, 'What? They're all off playing Indiana Jones.' She glanced around, saw that he was right and that they were alone, and softened under his touch as he put his fingers through her curls, smiling devilishly. 'So, when are we having this picnic?' he asked.

Elizabeth smiled, and brushed a leaf off his jacket. 'I was thinking for supper. I'm sure everyone else will have something to occupy them. But we'll have to feed Rodney first or he'll come and join us.'

John laughed, and slid his hands down her back before encircling them loosely at her waist. 'I still can't believe you made him bring Doctor Monahan along. He looked like you'd asked him to suck a lemon… and this _is _McKay we're talking about.'

Her eyes twinkled in delight at the thought – she had to admit that she found it secretly amusing to watch the two Doctors annoying each other, even though she wasn't supposed to – and made a contented little noise as John leant into kiss her.

'Ah… Colonel? Doctor Weir?'

They sprang apart like a pair of teenagers caught by a parent at the front door. Ronon stood a few metres away, a poorly hidden grin lurking around his face, and one of his hands pointing at the building.

'Yes, Ronon?' inquired Elizabeth in her most exemplary professional voice, as though she were addressing the President himself.

The Satedan shrugged. 'Something that you might wanna see.'

* * *

Ronon's words had been, as was often the case, a marked understatement. As he led them down the main corridor to where the two doctors were waiting, Elizabeth looked around with wide eyes. It wasn't as though this place was stocked with potentially valuable technology like the Ancient Area 51 had been, but it was simply… well, a snap-shot into Ancient life. The planet appeared empty of other humans and the door had been sealed shut before Ronon had helped McKay and Meaghan break in, so it was likely that the building they saw before them was _exactly_ as it had been left by the Ancient archaeologists the last time they had walked through these rooms. The thick layer of ten-thousand-year-old dust simply helped to add to the feeling of history, as though Elizabeth were actually breathing in the past.

Not surprisingly, Meaghan was speechless with excitement when they found her. She was simply walking around staring at everything. Rodney, on the other hand, had remained firmly grounded, and stood in front of a kind of display wall with his hands crossed across his chest. Hundreds of bone fragments and artefacts – it was these that mostly drew Doctor Monahan's awed attention – lined the main wall of an enormous room; each neatly labelled in Ancient and somehow held in a preserved state, as though they had been frozen, but minus the freezing. Even John stared up at the sheer quantity of remains and was grudgingly impressed.

Meaghan, who had finally found her voice, came skipping over to them and flung her arm in delight around a visibly shocked McKay's shoulder. 'Oh, ye gods and little fishes…' she murmured in delight and then hugged him tightly. It was clear to Elizabeth that she would have hugged whoever had been closest – it was simply a symptom of her rapture – but McKay's eyes boggled and he fought his way free of her.

'As you can see,' he said to John and Elizabeth as he glared at Meaghan and fastidiously straightened his jacket. 'The linguist is happy.'

'Happy!' she swanned. 'You have _no _idea! And _here_, Rodney dear, I am definitely the palaeoanthropologist rather than the linguist. You could spend a lifetime looking at this stuff. I wonder what it was about this particular planet, this particular group of remains, that so interested the Ancient Lanteans?' She blinked and her eyes grew suddenly earnest. 'Actually, that's a good question,' she muttered and hurried away to inspect them with more serious intent.

Rodney, meanwhile, had found what appeared to be the only large computer-interface in that room, or for that matter, in any of the rooms that they had come through. Elizabeth watched him work from over his shoulder, and asked, 'What's powering this place?' It never ceased to amaze her that they could walk into these spots where no-one had been for thousands of years, and still find the lights were working. It was like a B-grade movie where people wander into caves or ancient temples, and never ask themselves who it was that kept all the candles burning.

McKay barely glanced at her. 'Thermal power, I think. Not sure yet. In a moment…' He smiled triumphantly and nodded, 'Yes. See? Have got the computer going.' The screen before them, on the wall above where they stood, flashed blue and shimmered into life.

'Cool,' said John. 'A hologram.'


	4. Hologram

* * *

**IV: Hologram**

* * *

It wasn't the first time John had seen a hologram; that went without saying. But he still got a kick out of them – they were just _so_ Obi-Wan Kenobi. This one was life-sized and suspended half above them, just like the hologram they had seen when they first arrived in Atlantis. This time, however, it was the image of a man with a short beard and even shorter hair, dressed in typical, though somewhat scruffy, Lantean clothes. The hologram appeared to have started mid-sentence, as though it had been recorded either in a hurry or (which was more likely, it would soon become clear) by someone who wasn't entirely sure what he was doing. Of course, it was spoken in Ancient, but the majority of its current audience understood at least the basics.

_'...can see, the success of the dig thus far has been marvellous. I am hoping to send you this message this afternoon, but I make no promises _–_ as we had guessed it is taking quite some time to complete all the cataloguing and quantifications...'_

Rodney pushed a control, there was a blurred blip, and then the man appeared again, although his clothes were slightly different.

_'...can't believe how intense it all is here...'_

The physicist shrugged. 'They seem to be messages which were transmitted to Atlantis, as far as I can tell. For all I know, they're stored somewhere in the archived files there too. We still haven't even scratched the surface with that lot.' He pushed ahead, making the screen blip frenetically as he fast-forwarded.

Elizabeth smiled. 'You're telling me that we're looking at the _sent_ folder of this man's email?'

Rodney shrugged. 'If you want to use that analogy, yes. Of course, it's more complex—'

Ronon, who had so far been ignoring the general gist of the conversation, and didn't understand a word that the hologram-Ancient was saying either way, glanced at the paused figure and observed, 'He doesn't look so good.'

The others all glanced back at the hologram. Maybe just a twinge of shadowing around the eyes, the cheeks slightly hollowed... The Satedan was right. The man did look under the weather.

Rodney continued to sweep forwards through the messages, only pausing to listen to snippets here and there. A complaint about the hours, a comment on the weather, and all the while the man's health rapidly deteriorating. Suddenly the image on the hologram was a much younger Lantean, his face also wasted with fever_. 'We have sealed up all the artefacts and have begun to despair. Only Melsha and I are left... We don't believe we should return to the city... the sickness...' _His eyes had a haunted look. The hologram blipped to an end, the screen a whirl of blue.

'I don't like the sound of that,' said Elizabeth and exchanged a worried look with John.

At that moment, Meaghan came scurrying back over. 'I know why the Ancients were so interested in this planet,' she said breathlessly. 'You remember the plague that wiped them all out in our Galaxy? Well, I think the Lanteans brought it with them when they arrived from Earth.'


	5. Plague

* * *

**V: Plague**

* * *

A bleak silence followed Doctor Monahan's statement.

Then Rodney glanced around nervously. 'Well, this is bad,' he muttered unhappily. 'Like they-all-dropped-dead kind of bad and now we wander blithely in. Do you think...?'

'I'm sure we'll all be fine, McKay,' said John impatiently. 'The kid on the hologram was pretty clear that they'd sealed everything up.'

'Yes, I'm sure they did, Sheppard, and I'm _so_ glad you find that comforting, but do you have any idea of how many thousands of years ago we're talking about here? Ever heard of things fatiguing? Breaking? Wearing out?'

Elizabeth clearly was as bothered as McKay. 'Ronon,' she said. 'Go back to the jumper and contact Atlantis. Tell them not to send the second jumper as we'd planned, but ask instead that they put together a medical with HAZMATs.' She glanced at John as Ronon hurried out. 'If there _is_ a problem,' she explained, 'then I don't want to put anyone else at risk. We're not going back to the city till we've been given a clean bill of health.'

He nodded and went over to inspect the display walls to see if he could detect any sign of cracking. He had suddenly remembered the broken test tubes in their first year in Atlantis, broken test tubes that had brought the entire city to its knees. And there was something niggling at his sub-conscious, something that he felt he should be noticing, and he wanted to give it time to work its way up into clear sight.

McKay, meanwhile, had begun searching for more information in the computer-interface while Elizabeth turned her attention to Doctor Monahan. 'You do realise,' she said, 'the significance of what you're suggesting here. The plague that killed the Ancients…? The very reason why they fled our galaxy…?'

Meaghan tossed up being insulted at the continuous lack of respect for her professional judgement, decided that it was neither the time nor the place to care, and nodded. 'Yes. I know. All that we've ever been sure of is that about five million years ago the Lanteans left Earth. It's always seemed most likely that they left to escape the plague that swept our galaxy. I've read Doctor Jackson's notes about the tablet on Abydos which confirmed that the Ancients who didn't ascend were killed by it… And so the Ancients we know as Lanteans left, came here, started afresh, seeded new life―'

McKay looked up from the computer and glared at the girl. 'You _really _love that bit of the story don't you? You do know that it was all that seeding-of-life crap that led to the evolution of the Wraith, right?'

Meaghan gave him a sour look that would have been worthy of his own face and continued talking to Elizabeth. 'I've seen the reports on the plague and also the pathology which was done on Ayiana, the Ancient woman they found in Antarctica.' McKay looked disgusted at that point – in his opinion, pathology and forensics were only one step further away from voodoo than medicine was, but a whole heap more unpleasant.

The leader of the Atlantis expedition raised her eyebrows. 'And these remains show those characteristics?'

Meaghan nodded, pulling out the data device that she'd been carrying in her jacket pocket. 'And it also makes sense of some comments in here that were unclear without context—' She paused, her fingers running almost as deftly as McKay's over the device – she had come a long way since she'd first arrived in Atlantis – till she found the spot she was searching for, and then read aloud, with loose translation, '_These are the bones of our brethren who isolated themselves..._ It didn't make sense. I thought perhaps it was someone with a poetical frame of mind talking about the humans who appeared here soon after the Lanteans nudged on their development. But these aren't early humans – or at least, not the majority of them.'

She led Elizabeth to the display wall. 'Look at them. Some bones are different to what I'm used to seeing. And yet, others appear to have come from anatomically modern humans. But they all, at least at first glance, seem to be riddled with the same disease. A pretty painful looking one at that.'

McKay grunted and called them back to his side. 'Monahan, I hate to admit it, but this time I think you might be right.' She seemed startled, then grinned like a little kid who just got her first – well, whatever it was that rang your bell when you were small. She positively beamed. McKay looked highly irritated at her reaction. 'See,' he complained to Elizabeth, _'This_ is what they send us to work with!'

Meaghan poked her tongue out at him, still grinning. At some time in the last few weeks, she had come to realise that McKay's bark was definitely worse than his bite. Okay, so his bark _was _pretty brutal, but... She had discovered that the best way to deal with him was to make fun of him. It seemed so obvious once she'd worked it out. She grinned a little more and nudged him playfully on the shoulder. 'Well, go on. Tell me why I'm right. I'm dying to hear it. Actually, a signed hard-copy I could frame and hang on my wall wouldn't go down too badly either.'

The scientist groaned and turned back to the computer, muttering, then said, 'I've found a written log which is much easier to navigate than those holograms... though everything on this computer seems to have been recorded by some archaeologist with no understanding of his own technology—' he paused and glanced pointedly at Doctor Monahan '—which goes to show that apparently some things never change. Still. The Lanteans _did_ come here with the aim of studying the remains of a settlement that had begun directly after their arrival in Pegasus.'

'So not all Ancients stayed in Atlantis?'

'No. It appears that some separated from the main group. Various reasons. But those that came to Alba all had one thing in common – they were carriers of the plague.'

Elizabeth started. 'But surely if you were moving half way across the universe to escape a disease, you wouldn't bring it with you? It might be heartless, but... why would you do that? Wouldn't it put everyone in danger?'

McKay's eyes scrunched together a little as he scrolled down the screen and read further. The Australian, who could read both quicker and more effectively than him, shoved him over in his chair and perched herself on the edge of it next to him. For once, he said nothing, and let her read. Finally she shook her head. 'Apparently they were carriers, but showed no outward signs of the disease themselves. They were sealed off from the rest of the Lanteans during the journey and only allowed to come on the strict restriction that they would settle on a planet and never contact the outside galaxy. And—' she wrinkled her nose in concentration '—they were all family members of high ranking Councillors who didn't want to leave their loved ones behind and had the clout to make it happen.'

McKay was nodding in affirmation as she read.

'So what went wrong?' asked John's voice. 'If they didn't manifest the disease themselves, why'd they all die?'

Elizabeth glanced at him in surprise – she hadn't heard him walk up. The doctors on their shared chair were silent for a moment, then Rodney said, 'I've got nothing.' He glanced at Meaghan.

She shrugged. 'They mustn't have all died off right away. I seriously doubt that these bones are millions of years old. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge... finding bones that age, in this condition, would be highly irregular. I couldn't imagine they were more than _one_ million years old, let alone a _five_ million. They must have survived for quite some time, had babies, built a settlement, and created a society. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.' She paused. 'I could tell you more, but I'll need a sealed room, and a HAZMAT suit, and equipment, and a team. And, most of all, time.'

Elizabeth nodded. 'You'll get it, whatever you need.' Then she glanced at McKay. 'And I want _you_ to start searching this place for the codes to the sphere. Download the computer and take it back with you to Atlantis, go through every scrap of information. That _was _the primary reason we came here, I'm sure I don't need to remind you.'

Rodney nodded, and bent his head back to the computer. Meaghan slipped off the chair she'd been sharing with him and wandered off to stare at the bones again, making a mental list of all the things she would have to ask for.

Elizabeth brushed some curls from her eyes and suddenly suspected that it was going to be a much longer day than she had anticipated. Then she glanced around, bothered, as it were, by the distinct feeling that she had mislaid someone.

John smiled. 'Ronon,' he said. 'Don't worry, he's sitting on the jumper ramp sharpening a small arsenal of knives.'

She let herself relax under his gaze, but protested with a smile, _'Must_ you read my mind?'

John shrugged cheerfully, then pulled his face into a more serious expression and admitted, 'There's something that's been bothering me. If these archaeologists all got sick and died, then where are _their_ remains? I mean, it was right at the time of the siege according to Monahan, so I highly doubt that someone from Atlantis came out to bury them or whatever. And – well – there has to be at least _one _somewhere. You can't bury yourself. Unless... I guess he might have simply wandered off into the rainforest.'

Elizabeth shook her head. 'I don't know.' Then, with a slight smile, she put it from her mind and said, 'Come on, you. I've got some radioing to do.'

'I suppose this means that the picnic is cancelled?'

He looked at her with a grin in his puppy-dog eyes to assure her that he understood and wasn't upset, and she tweaked his ear. 'Consider yourself owed one picnic.'

He chuckled and accompanied her to the jumper, watching her walk from the corner of his eye. He wondered if she had any idea how much his hands itched to touch her and asked himself, not for the first time, how long it would be before she would let him caress her in public.


	6. Bones

* * *

**VI: Bones**

* * *

Since little was known about the plague – except that it had decimated the Ancients which, in John Sheppard's book, was _more_ than enough information – it had been decided that, rather than bring the bones back to Atlantis, a containment area would be set up inside the building on Alba. It had taken a over week to get everything the way that Doctor Monahan and her team required it and then Elizabeth had stood behind a clear wall and watched as the girl, who looked terribly small in her HAZMAT suit, broke the seal on one of the compartments and gently pulled a bone out from the case that had held it preserved for a good ten thousand years or so. Despite Meaghan's genuine concern about the disease, her face still bore an expression of elevation, like a yogini on the cusp of transcendence.

'How long do you think she'll be at it?' asked McKay's voice, jolting Elizabeth from her thoughts.

She turned, and looked at him quizzically. 'Rodney? I thought you were in Atlantis with the downloaded computer?'

He nodded. 'I am. I mean, I will be. At the moment I've got Guiscard looking over it. I just thought I'd pop back and check there wasn't anything else here that could be technologically interesting.' Elizabeth raised her eyes at his use of the phrase _pop back _but, before she could start (not for the first time) explaining that each use of a puddlejumper cost an inordinate amount of time and energy, he added rapidly, 'It seems that the Ancients stationed here were about as inept as Monahan. You have seen what she does, haven't you? I mean, she actually writes all her notes long-hand on _paper._'

He stared at the girl through the glass dividing them, surrounded, as she was, by a gaggle of scientists. Elizabeth fought back a smile. 'Oh, I don't know,' she said. 'The good Doctor doesn't look too inept at the moment.'

Clearly not entirely sure whether Elizabeth was making fun of him or not, McKay shrugged and changed the topic. 'That room _is _sealed, isn't it? I mean—' He crossed his arms across his chest. 'I've been reading up on this plague. The basic fact is that it apparently killed everyone on this planet. And if _her _theory is correct, then it killed off the archaeologists who found them as well. In that case, well, it's worse than anything _I've_ ever heard of. And I've heard of a fair bit.'

Elizabeth nodded. 'I understand your concern, Rodney, and I can assure you that we're not taking this lightly, but the Lantean archaeologists must have been looking for something specific. They knew who these remains belonged to. Why come along a few thousand years later and dig them up?' They were both silent for a moment, then she put a firm expression on her face and said, 'Now, I am returning to Atlantis and you are coming with me. Stop fussing about Doctor Monahan and focus on finding me those codes.'

A look of utter outrage on his face, he tried to find suitably violent words to protest that he had been in _no way_ been fussing about the linguist, not even remotely. Ahead of him on her way to the jumper, Elizabeth had a mischievous smile on her face. McKay's buttons were so very easy to push.

She was definitely picking up some bad habits from John.

* * *

Time passed in Atlantis.

Just because Elizabeth's mind kept returning to the weekly reports from Doctor Monahan and Doctor McKay, didn't mean that she could stop everything she was doing and go and watch either of them work. Everyday life continued as per usual. She still had all the same responsibilities she had ever had. _And_ she still owed John a picnic. He would slip it sneakily into conversations when he thought she had forgotten and turn up late in the evenings with a hopeful look on his face. Sometimes she wondered why he put up with the hours that she worked and the attention that she gave everyone else in the city compared to him. Deep down, she suspected that she put him last on her to-do list because of the guilt that she felt about their relationship. If John was her lover, then it was definitely to the demanding city that she was married. Sometimes she wondered how long he would be happy with that. Simon hadn't been. _You were gone for a long time, Elizabeth_, he'd said. As though a year meant anything when you loved someone.

Now she shook her head slightly to herself and turned her attention back to Teyla, who was seated at her desk in front of her. She realised that she hadn't heard anything the slight woman had said for the last five minutes and now, with a concerned smile, Teyla was asking, 'Is everything alright, Doctor Weir?'

Elizabeth smiled. 'I'm sorry. I don't know what's gotten into me recently. My mind was miles away.'

Teyla's face relaxed at the knowledge that it wasn't anything more serious. 'It was only chatter anyway, nothing important. Is it—?'

Elizabeth smiled again at her friend. 'I just keep thinking about what McKay and Monahan are working on. If McKay can find the codes somewhere in that computer, we could possibly have the answer to all our problems. And then, on the other hand, there's Monahan – I truly wonder if I should have let her start examining those remains.'

The Athosian tilted her head questioningly, and placed her hands flat on the table between them. 'You do not believe she is at risk of catching the disease?'

'No... I just—' She stopped; she couldn't explain. The simple version of events was that, over the last few days, she had begun to grow uneasy without knowing why. There was more to this, she was sure, than what they thought. _What _had been the Lantean's motives?

Teyla was sympathetic. 'If I could help...?'

Elizabeth shook her head and squeezed Teyla's hands. 'It's nothing. I'm just being silly.'

* * *

An hour later the message came from McKay: he hadn't found the codes, but he had discovered new information about the Ancients on Alba. Then, five minutes later, while Elizabeth was still making her way across the city to the lab he was in, Meaghan had radioed: there was something Doctor Weir should see. In the end, Elizabeth had told McKay to bring his information and meet her in the gateroom; he could tell her on the way to Alba.

Like the first time, John again piloted their jumper, but now Elizabeth sat in the rear compartment with Rodney and looked at the data he was showing her. She shook her head at him. 'Simple words, Rodney. Just give me the bottom line.'

He nodded, only a little put-out, and explained, 'Well, we know that Alba was settled by disease-carrying Ancients and then left alone like a leper colony. And that they survived. Apparently they had children and everything was going well for them. Sure, some of their kids died at the start from the plague, but, eventually the only people left, after a few generations, were plague-carriers who bore healthy, plague-carrying offspring.' He seemed to find that paradox amusing, and grinned. Elizabeth just looked at him and he swiftly pulled the grin from his face and kept talking. 'As you can imagine, the community began to change in its isolation.'

'Founder effect.'

He blinked at her.

She smiled mildly. 'Doctor Monahan used the term in one of her reports.'

'Hmm. Figures. Well, they changed. Then, a few millennia after they had settled, they built themselves a stargate.'

Elizabeth's face registered astonishment. 'But they had the plague that destroyed life in the Milky Way...'

He nodded again, impatiently. 'Yes, well, apparently they weren't planning on going through it themselves. But they believed that they had such a _wonderful_ society that they thought that anyone willing to take pot luck with the plague should be able to join them. According to the Lantean records, by that time they saw themselves as special, not as diseased.' He paused. 'But the Lantean ancients reacted just like we do at the thought. And they wiped out the settlement. They believed that the construction of the stargate was a violation of the original terms and they couldn't take the risk that someone might break the quarantine.'

Elizabeth held her silence for a moment. Would she wipe out a planet under those circumstances? It was a question she would prefer not to answer.

Then suddenly she thought of something that ought have occurred to her before, and asked, 'But – the Wraith? Wouldn't the Wraith have fed upon them just like anyone else? Don't they share part of our DNA? Surely it would have affected them... or at least escaped into the galaxy that way?'

He simply looked at her with an unhappy expression that admitted he had absolutely no idea. He raised his hands palm up. 'I'd thought of that too. But I've got nothing. Really. Nothing. Disturbing, isn't it?'


	7. Unpleasant Reasoning

* * *

**VII: Unpleasant Reasoning**

* * *

Twenty minutes later they reached the planet.

Meaghan stood waiting for them; her fair skin slightly sunburnt beneath the singlet and shorts she was wearing. In the humidity of the rainforest it was murder to wear anything else, especially underneath her HAZMAT suit. Sure, the building had an environmentals system that was supposed to deal with the dampness and heat but, since they'd constructed the sealed section for her and her team to work in, it was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. She sighed, lifted her hair off her neck and tied it up into a tattered cotton scarf while she watched McKay and Elizabeth exit the puddlejumper, and react noticeably to the heat rising up from the very ground. The weather hadn't been this sultry the last time they'd been on the planet, and Meaghan knew that in minutes they would be sheened in a slick of sweat just like she was. She brushed some insects away and then restrained herself from scratching at the short orange fluff that had appeared in her armpits – honestly, there were some aspects to this job that just wore her out sometimes and she'd be blowed if she could be bothered taking the time to shave under her arms for a bunch of scientists, none of whom even vaguely took her face anyway. Sure, she had managed to do her legs; but the sweat and the bugs and the unshaven pits had most definitely _not _been in the brochure. She grinned, a little ferally. In a perverse kind of way, she was having a blast.

The she frowned. Still, there were other things…

The palaeoanthropologist wrinkled her nose, by way of greeting, as Doctor Weir and McKay reached her. 'Like a sauna, isn't it?' she said. 'I won't tell you you'll get used to it because it's been _I'm _not adjusted yet. It makes the bones that bit more remarkable though. To have been preserved so long before the Ancients dug them up, in a climate that can pull this off... Normally that sort of preservation only happens in very hot and dry, or very cold and dry, conditions. Or swamps. Or tar pits. This humidity...' She looked disgusted. 'I grew up in hot and dry and, like with artefacts, it suits me best. This stuff is killing me. And the leeches!' She pulled a face and glanced down at her grubby ankles, as though concerned that some might have latched on while she spoke. 'I mean, I suppose they aren't _really _leeches, leastways not Earth ones, but pretty damn close enough if you ask me.'

Elizabeth looked at her with an eyebrow quirked up and an expression of enduring patience on her face. Waiting for Meaghan to get to the point could be worse than waiting for Rodney to, sometimes. Actually, Elizabeth suspected that half the reason they clashed so much was that, on some basic level, they were rather similar.

Meaghan nodded, having noticed Elizabeth's expression, and grinned sheepishly as she turned and led them to the building, shaking her top slightly again, to keep it from sticking to her back.

McKay stopped dead on the spot, stared at her, and then hissed to Elizabeth, 'That's worse than Ronon's barbarism! Did you _know_?' He had never seen the long row of black-inked Norse runes that snaked their way up Meaghan's backbone before, but the singlet didn't leave much to the imagination - neither them, nor the rather-too-plump curve of her belly where it met her shorts.

Elizabeth shook her head at him. 'You really are impossible, Rodney. Of course I knew. It's in her files. And she's not the only person you work with who has tattoos apart from Ronon, you know.'

He looked curious. 'Really? Like who?' And then, when he got no response, 'Well, she never mentioned it.'

Meaghan, who had sharper hearing than he had expected, shot a grin over her shoulder at the astonished scientist and said, 'Well, since we never had a discussion about the relativity of barbarism in modern society, Rodney, it just hasn't come up, has it?'

He tried to look superior, failed, and followed her to the building with his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the black runes. He genuinely couldn't understand why people would inflict that sort of thing upon themselves, and was thinking, _well, I don't know. That makes her almost as big a cave-dweller as Ronon. Well. Except that she talks more. Heaps, heaps more. _

* * *

Climbing back into her by-now-detested HAZMAT suit, Meaghan entered the sealed room and then switched on the commlink that would allow McKay and Elizabeth to hear what she was saying. Then, with a wry smile, she launched into a technical monologue that even the physicist had to admit at least _sounded_ like science.

Elizabeth listened carefully for about ten minutes, and then raised her hands in a sign of defeat. 'Are you saying that these people were no longer human?'

Meaghan nodded. 'That's exactly what I'm saying, at least in layman's terms. Advanced, or altered, humans, I suppose would be slightly more accurate. All this time I'd been presuming that I was dealing with two disparate groups. But then I made some... other... discoveries and put two and two together and actually got four. They were human, but unlike any human you have ever seen, as though their isolation – and their co-existence with the plague – changed them into something more, something new.' She paused. 'And it wasn't the plague that killed them. Something external did that.'

'We know.' Rodney's voice was just _possibly _smug.

Doctor Monahan stared at him through the glass. 'You know? I'm here in this sauna and you _know?_'

Elizabeth broke in soothingly, 'Doctor McKay only made the discovery just before you radioed. Apparently, it was the Lantean Ancients who wiped them out.'

Meaghan's expression grew hard beneath her HAZMAT mask but, oddly, she didn't seem quite as surprised as Elizabeth would have expected her to be. Looking at the younger woman curiously, the leader of Atlantis added, 'What I want to know is why, after they themselves wiped out the inhabitants of this planet, did they return a millennia or two later and dig them up in an archaeological expedition?'

Meaghan gazed at the floor and said nothing.

'You know something!' accused Rodney. 'Elizabeth, she knows something!'

'Doctor Monahan?' asked Elizabeth in her not-quite-there-but-verging-on-dangerous voice.

Meaghan glanced at them and her eyes flashed. 'They were looking for a weapon.'


	8. Biological Warfare

* * *

**VIII: Biological Warfare**

* * *

They sat on the steps that led into the building on Alba. John, his jacket off and his sleeves rolled as high as he could get them, rested with his knees loosely apart and listened as Elizabeth brought him up to date.

'A weapon?' he asked, and looked at the palaeoanthropologist searchingly. She was back out of her HAZMAT suit again and seemed distinctly unhappy to find herself the centre of everyone's scrutiny. As far as John was concerned, however, his day had just improved: weapons were always good, at least, so long as he was the one using them. He grinned. 'Well that would _finally_ explain why a history recording device was in the Ancient Area 51. About time someone cleared that up for me!'

The Australian girl had a defiant look on her face and her chin jutted in a way that both McKay and Elizabeth had learnt to recognise as a danger signal. '_Yes_, a weapon,' she snapped, and looked cranky to be even so much as using the word. 'A biological weapon, to be precise. I said I had made some other discoveries – one of them was a pile of handwritten notes in a cupboard – which _you_ clearly missed, McKay – and, apart from that, there were some odd marks on the bones, clearly made post-mortem. Then there was the _way_ that the archaeologists had been studying them. I mean, I know I can't expect them to use only techniques that I'm familiar with, it's not like they studied Archaeology 101 at any uni I'm familiar with, but still. Plus, some other things… And I realised that a disease as bred into a race as the one on this planet was, and those archaeologists turning up just as things were getting really uncomfortable back in Atlantis, was too great a coincidence. I mean, the middle of a war isn't normally when you focus on archaeology, right? Unless you think you can get some advantage from it.' She paused, brushed sweaty hair from her forehead where it had escaped her scarf, and frowned. 'You know the Wraith never came to this planet? The people here had the perfect society, totally perfect. You can read the glyphs on the ruins.' She looked bitter. 'Wasn't it enough that the Lanteans came and destroyed them? But then to return and use their remains to try and make a weapon…?'

The three members of her audience just sat and looked at her for a moment. Then Elizabeth said in that quiet, dangerous voice of hers, 'You _were_ planning on sharing this information sooner rather than later?'

'I just _did_, didn't I?'

Elizabeth stared at her intently, and suddenly remembered the small note that someone had pinned to Doctor Monahan's file during the selection process: _there are some black marks against her, for example an extremely militant trip on Greenpeace's MV Esperanza, but her education and gift with the Ancient gene would appear to outweigh these considerations. _Elizabeth wondered if they had been wrong. Not that she didn't have some questionable actions in her own past (at least in the eyes of the IOC), but—

Meaghan lowered her gaze a little. 'Look, I didn't mean to bite your head off. But I really _did_ just tell you. It should have been earlier, I know, but you of all people must understand how I feel. That was why I asked you to come, anyway – so I could explain face-to-face. And to give you the longhand notes I found. I _do_ understand the importance of defence,' she added with a glance in Sheppard's direction, whose face had a slightly stupefied expression, and shook her head. 'I've helped in Atlantis' mortuary enough times to work that one out. But please don't ask me to help develop a weapon.' Her voice had lost its edge and when she looked at Elizabeth, there was nothing in her eyes but sadness.

Elizabeth thought about all the times she had been forced to over-ride her own moral judgement since she had arrived in Atlantis, and shook her head with a sigh. 'No, you just keep looking at those bones. I am sure there are people much more qualified than you when it comes to working on or with biological warfare, when it comes to that. You can continue here.' She paused, and added sharply, 'For the moment.'

McKay's eyes widened in offended astonishment. 'How come _she_ gets to pick and choose what she does? I don't remember anyone ever asking me if _my_ ethical sensibilities had been offended!'

John smirked and thumped him on the back. 'That's because you haven't got any ethical sensibilities, Rodney. Or have you forgotten that time that―'

Elizabeth demanded silence before it could become a full-blown domestic. 'Rodney. Just go and collect these notes she's talking about. Then, would you please get back onto looking for those codes? No more historical investigations, okay?' Elizabeth watched as McKay and Monahan stood, chagrined, and vanished inside, and then let her head sink back against John's shoulder. He put his arm around her and she breathed in the familiar salty scent of his skin. 'Why is it always so complicated?' she murmured. He didn't answer, but held her closer.

In the building, out of sight and out of earshot, Rodney McKay followed an unusually subdued Meaghan as she walked through the halls. Then he tapped her on the shoulder, swung her around, and demanded, 'You still haven't told her everything have you?' He grasped her arm tightly and studied at her with narrowed, accusing eyes.

Meaghan glared at him furiously, ripped herself from his hold, and stomped down the hall. If she focused on her anger, it might keep back the tears that were gleaming in her own eyes.


	9. At Last, The Codes

* * *

**IX: At Last, The Codes**

**(But you didn't think it would be simple, did you?)**

* * *

Time passed. Hours became days and days became weeks, and suddenly it was a month and half since Elizabeth had set foot on Alba. Days passed. In Atlantis, the daylight hours had begun to shorten and there were more parties of an evening as people scrambled to take advantage of the remaining light and good weather. Soon it would be autumn and, although there were no visible signs to mark the passing of the seasons in the city, the cooling of the air was apparent.

Elizabeth had almost put the bones – and the codes, for that matter – completely from her mind. In fact, she had asked Rodney to spend less time on searching for them: there seemed to be an inordinate amount of complete rubbish in the computer – at least, so far as relevance to the codes was concerned – and Rodney's brain was far too important to be wasted on sifting through it.

Which was why she had needed, just for a second, to think before she realised what Rodney was babbling about when his voice on the radio exclaimed excitedly, ' Elizabeth! I've found them. I've found the codes!' There had been a fraction of silence following his declaration (which she was filling with her moment-to-think) before he muttered, 'Well. I expected a least a pat on the head for it. A small "well done Rodney" was the bare minimum of my obviously over-expectant hopes."

Elizabeth was smiling, and already half way to his lab, when he finally stopped complaining long enough for her to say, 'Yes, Rodney. Your pat on the head is coming, trust me! If this works, I don't doubt that both the IOC and the SGC will think up some way of rewarding you that is much more satisfying than just a pat on the head! Where were the codes, in the end?'

He groaned loudly through the radio. 'Amongst the most tedious list of personal data, belonging to one of the archaeologists: truly boring, I mean _mind-numbingly_ boring. But I was just taking a look during my lunch break and―' He paused, glanced up, and realised that she had entered the room and was standing right in front of him, smiling. 'Oh,' he said. 'There you are.'

'Here I am,' she agreed happily. 'And Doctor Zelenka too,' she added with a smile in the Czech's direction. Radek was seated in front of Rodney's laptop with a frown embedded on his forehead, and didn't look in any way as happy as Elizabeth had rather presumed he would.

In fact, he looked up and said, in a voice that lurked somewhere between depressed and reproving, 'Tell her the rest, Rodney.'

The physicist looked irritated, glared at his colleague, and complained, 'Well, yes, thank you Radek. I was getting to that. I just thought we'd have the happy-well-done-Rodney part first, _before_ we got to the doomsdaying.'

Zelenka shook his head. 'It is not doomsdaying, it is facing reality!'

Doctor Weir looked from one man to the other. 'Okay, so I'm not smiling any more. We have the codes, but…?'

Zelenka opened his mouth to reply however, predictably enough, Rodney spoke over him. 'We have the codes. This is a Good Thing. And from the notes with them, we now know that I was right about them being the reason why the Ancient Area 51 was dissolving around us.'

'_But_,' prompted Zelenka, his eyes tired and serious.

'Why yes, thank you again, so much, Radek. _But_,' emphasised Rodney sourly, 'according to this new information we have an itty-bitty problem. It seems that the sphere expends an inordinate amount of energy each time it is used. I mean, that makes sense; it _is_ generating an entire artificial world. That's going to take some energy source. Now, thankfully it stores a certain amount up for a rainy day, which is why it didn't shut down while we were using it and – well, let's just say that we wouldn't be standing here discussing it if it _had _shut down, Elizabeth. But now that we know what we know…'

'We can ascertain that that residual power is all but drained,' finished Zelenka, and he made a motion with his hand that was semi-apologetic, as though he was sorry there was nothing he could do about it.

Elizabeth felt a familiar wave of frustration well up inside her. 'So, you're saying…?'

'That it's been a massive waste of time. Yes.' Rodney nodded once, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Zelenka held up a finger. '_Not _if we can find the original power source that belonged with the sphere.'

McKay looked irritated. 'No kidding,' he sneered. 'But considering―'

'Rodney!' Elizabeth shouted his name and he shut up and stared at her. She lowered her voice and forced herself to calm before she spoke again. Then she said gently, 'Rodney, please let Radek finish talking.'

Zelenka almost smiled, but when he spoke his voice was serious. 'According to this data there was a specific power source. A – a stand in which the sphere sat. Like a globe, you know, like a globe of the Earth that has a metal ring around it to support it when you are doing the spinning. The sphere would also spin, in this stand, this power source, and, united, it seems they would generate enough energy to use the Ancient Area 51 without danger. Enter the codes and all would be perfect. However,' he added, with a nod in McKay's direction, 'We do not know where this stand is and, without it...'

'It ought be in the city though, shouldn't it?' mused Elizabeth. 'Since you found the sphere here. It stands to reason.'

McKay had his most superior expression on. 'Oh. Yes. Stands to reason. Of course it does. But do I have to remind you that Atlantis is, oh, I don't know, about the size of Manhattan if I remember correctly? We've looked in the lab where we found the sphere and it wasn't there. As for the rest of the city – well, you know as well as I do that the Colonel hasn't even given us the okay for even half of it yet. It would be like searching for―' he paused tiredly, then gave up, and concluded with a shrug, 'Something very small in some place very large.'

Zelenka couldn't help himself. He chuckled. 'Very good analogy, Rodney.'

If looks could kill….

Elizabeth sighed, tapped her radio, and told John the news. Then she organized a general briefing. 'Today, eighteen-hundred hours. Doctor Zelenka, I want you to describe this… _thing_ to everyone. If we all know what it looks like and have the importance of it filed away in the back of our minds, then at least there's a _chance_ that it won't get shoved in a cupboard somewhere by accident.'

For a second, McKay opened his mouth to complain that it wasn't him giving the presentation – but then, after considering it for a second, he decided that Zelenka was welcome to the job.

* * *

If someone had thought to send a description to the scientists on Alba, the entire process might have gone a whole lot quicker. As it was, the IOC had begun to breathe down Elizabeth's neck about the time that was being taken. The elated report about the Ancient Area 51, that she had given them months ago, had whet their appetite, and now they had what she had promised them was the missing piece to the puzzle – and still no progress. That sort of thing tried their patience and they had started turning screws on the issue; to be so close, and yet further away than ever – no, that wasn't the kind of thing the IOC appreciated.

However, Elizabeth couldn't afford to worry about it all non-stop and, in the meantime, she had decided to finally take another day properly off and give John the picnic that she had promised him so many weeks ago. He'd been working even harder than her, doubling his hours spent exploring the city in his desire to finally get his hands on the "big boys' toys" he was certain they would find in the Ancient Area 51. He could do with a break – actually, they both could.

So when the next puddlejumper was scheduled to fly to Alba with supplies, Elizabeth had asked him to pilot it, with her as a passenger, and tucked a picnic basket up under the boxes of supplies. And when they had arrived, she had just grinned mischievously and left him to unpack. He'd know what the basket was for when he found it! In the meantime, she wandered into the main Alban building to see how the bones were coming along. Frankly, Elizabeth had just about decided that nothing new had come from the planet in a sufficiently long enough time for her to shut the small base down. She planned on having the bones re-sealed, the door fixed shut, and getting her scientists back to more productive tasks. Doctor Monahan would no doubt whinge, but she and her team had had more than long enough here.

It would be an understatement to say that Elizabeth was surprised when she didn't find the Australian in the sealed room where she had _expected_ to find her, but instead came upon her standing in her underwear in a room with the door wide-open, inspecting her limbs critically. Elizabeth couldn't help but stare and ask, astonished, 'Doctor Monahan?'

The palaeoanthropologist jumped, blushed furiously, and pulled on a shirt while she explained hurriedly, 'I thought the place was empty – everyone else is in field – those damned puddlejumpers are way too quiet.' Then she grinned and clarified, 'I was checking for leeches. Found three of the little slimers, too.' She motioned to some small black smudges on the floor, and added, 'You know, it's strange. I don't even squish spiders. But leeches…' She shuddered, then glanced back at Elizabeth and beamed. 'Still, it's worth it. You should see the sites that the anthropologists have unearthed. You have no idea how fascinating this society really was. We've found heaps of other ruins. I mean, this is the only building proper, we saw that on the scan, but―' she trailed off, realising, with some disappointment, that Doctor Weir wasn't even listening.

Instead, Elizabeth was staring straight ahead at a diagram, pinned to the wall behind the girl's head. A diagram of a globe. Or – a diagram of the _sphere inside its power-generating stand_.

Meaghan followed her gaze, her shorts in her hands, and said, 'That? That's been there since we arrived.'

Elizabeth slapped herself mentally and wondered how it was possible that Zelenka's description had not been sent to the planet as first-port-of-call. While she was trying to work out whether the blame lay on herself or someone else, John appeared behind her. He snuggled his hands against her waist, then dropped them when he realised they weren't alone – he knew it made her uncomfortable – and _then_ stared at Meaghan, who had gone the colour of borscht, and was tugging on the pair of shorts so fast that she almost fell over. 'Leech search,' she squeaked, mortified.

He winked at the girl, then followed Elizabeth's gaze and asked abruptly, 'Isn't that…?'

She nodded. 'I think it might be.'

Meaghan stared at them both, confused. 'I have no idea what either of you are talking about.'

Doctor Weir shook her head. 'The sphere. McKay found the codes. But we need a power source – _that_ power source.'

Meaghan joined them in staring at the poster. Then she said quietly, 'Ah. That could be a problem.' She glanced at Elizabeth sideways. 'Doctor Weir, there's something you should know.'


	10. Confessions

* * *

**X: Confessions **

* * *

Doctor Monahan had never the leader of the Atlantis expedition so very, very furious. After all, Meaghan hadn't been there during the Kavanagh Affair (as it had been affectionately dubbed); she hadn't been there during the stand-offs with various military man; she hadn't been there the time that Elizabeth was on Olesia. And, up until now, she had found that her personal own quirks were treated with impressive patience and good-humour. All of which meant, well – to find herself abruptly at the receiving end of a fury that she hadn't even expected existed beneath the woman's calm exterior―?

She had known that Weir would be angry.

But _this _angry?

Meaghan almost wished that McKay were there because at least seeing him sneer at her discomfort would be familiar. She paused mentally. On the other hand, if he _were _there then she'd probably have to dig herself a great big old hole and drop herself in it from shame. It was bad enough that _she _was witness to her own humiliation, without someone who would rib her about it for months doing so as well.

Elizabeth was still yelling. 'Are you telling me that there are humans on this planet? That there are plague-carrying humans here? And that you never saw fit to share this information with me? And you've been off doing what, playing Margaret Mead all this time – for how many weeks?'

The leader paused to draw breath and Meaghan seized the opportunity to break in desperately before she could start again. Men yelling at her she could deal with, Meaghan had grown used to that and could normally ignore it. But women – a shudder ran down her spin. No, yelling women all brought back images of her irate mother and it wasn't pretty. Her mother was a fantastic, loving woman, but when she got riled, she needed a warning sign taped to her forehead that informed the world to _Be Afraid – Be Very, Very Afraid. _

'They wouldn't hurt us, Doctor Weir,' burst out Meaghan. 'They _haven't _hurt us. It's not a health risk, if that's what you're worried about. Yes, they are the descendents of the few people who managed to survive the Lantean genocide and, yes, they all carry the plague. But it's not like we thought. What I know now – it makes it even clearer why the Lanteans thought of them when it came to biological warfare, if they knew the whole deal. The Purified – that's what they call themselves – they have the ability to turn it on and off at will. Like... like someone who could give you a cold just because they wanted to. We haven't threatened them – yet – and so they haven't infected us. The Lantean archaeologists, on the other hand – well, they left them alone too at the start. The Purified are a peaceful people, Doctor Weir. They didn't want revenge, even though they knew that it was the Lanteans who almost wiped them out. But they left them in peace – until they found out that the purpose of the Lantean visit was to create a great weapon with the aim of committing genocide again. I know we don't think of killing off the Wraith as genocide in that sense. But the Wraith never came here – I still don't know why – so the Purified don't know them. In their eyes, it was just the Lanteans repeating history with yet another group.'

Elizabeth gazed at her, incredulous. 'Just how _much _time have you spent with these people?' Then she paused, stared, and then exclaimed, 'That was where you were returning from when we arrived, wasn't it? _That's_ why you were checking for leeches. Because you'd been tramping around in the rainforest with these – these people!'

Meaghan nodded, and her chin jutted out stubbornly. 'Yes, that's where I was. You know, we should actually be thankful that they confronted me and gave me a chance to explain who we were. When they saw the Lantean puddlejumpers they feared the worst and could easily have killed us all.'

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed and she searched the girl's face to try and work out if this was really the whole story now. Eventually she sighed and ran a hand across her forehead, leaning ever so slightly against John who stood, still silent behind her, just to feel him there. Actually, he would dearly have liked to talk, but for the moment he thought he'd better let the women battle it out. He had a feeling it was one of those cases where if he butted in, they might unite against him – cranky women were funny like that. And, in reality, whether Elizabeth acknowledged it or not, John knew that what Meaghan had done was exactly the kind of thing Elizabeth herself would have done. So he kept his mouth shut and, for the moment, just listened.

Meaghan looked relieved to be given the chance to continue talking. She gathered her thoughts. 'I _haven't _been playing Margaret Mead but—' She caught herself, then almost-grinned and conceded sheepishly, 'Well, perhaps just a little. I know I should have told you, Doctor Weir. I was just concerned that someone would charge in here weapon-toting, and asking stupid questions, and getting these people riled...' She stopped, then added more to herself than to the others, 'It's odd, you know. McKay realised last time you were here that I knew more. I'm actually surprised—' She was frankly surprised that he hadn't said anything to anyone. Perhaps he _was_ human under all that gruff and grump. She glanced back at Elizabeth, then John, and continued hurriedly, 'Anyway. They found me in one of their ruins and demanded to know what our motives were. I explained our curiosity about the bones, and that we were searching for some particular data. That was a few months ago. Since then I've been learning their dialect. It's Ancient, but of course has evolved almost as much as them over time. Doctor Weir, Colonel – you have never met more wonderful, peaceful people. I don't know how many hours I've spent with them but I have never seen them treat anyone with anything but respect. You know, from what I can tell, apparently their society was just like the one in Atlantis at the start, but when it was destroyed they decided to cast off their old ties and create their own kind of community. They've evolved beyond us, Doctor Weir, evolved away from the direction we're heading in. They can _do _things. Advanced, strange things.'

John smirked and finally couldn't help himself. 'How advanced can they be?' he joked. 'There aren't even any buildings on this planet except the one we're standing in.'

A spark of anger lit the palaeoanthropologist's eyes. 'What is it with that? People don't live in houses and don't drive cars and so they aren't advanced! I would have thought that you'd have seen enough different worlds by now, here in the Pegasus Galaxay, to know that advancement isn't a straightforward line you can judge by Earth standards, or how many MacDonalds they have, or something, Colonel Sheppard. It's like that old chestnut about the Indigenous Peoples in Northern Australia – the Yolngu for example. Everyone always wants to know, why didn't they take up agriculture since they knew about it from the Indonesians and the Papua New Guineans? It never seems to occur to anyone that they might simply not have been interested. Why does materialism equate to advancement?'

Slightly brow-beaten under the onslaught of her diatribe and making a mental note to himself _never _to ask that in her presence again, John blinked. 'Sorry, stupid question. So, they're advanced. Good for them. But _how _does this all relate to me getting to the goodies lurking inside that there Ancient Area 51 of mine?'

She shook her head, and pointed at the diagram of the sphere and it's power-source. 'That thing, I've seen it. I obviously never imagined that it was connected in some way with the sphere, I presumed it was a globe. The Purified have it. They've got a few things like that, I think from the archaeologists – they call them their Lantean artefacts. Most of the personal stuff they sent back to Atlantis apparently. I guess that's how the sphere got there. And before you ask, I don't know how they managed to do that without a functioning stargate – we know they didn't use the archaeologists' puddlejumper because one of my team finally found it in the underbrush. Like I said, they can make things happen.' She halted, and then added apologetically, 'I'm sorry, Doctor Weir, but I really doubt they'll give it to you.'

John shrugged, grinned, and patted his sidearm. 'We can be awfully persuasive.'

Meaghan just looked at him a little pityingly. 'You're dreaming, Colonel. There is nothing that you or any of your military mates have that can bother this people. They've come a long way since the Lanteans tried to wipe them out. Doctor Weir, if nothing else, you have to take them seriously. I really wouldn't want them as enemies.'


	11. The Purified

**The Purified**

Rodney McKay swore to himself and looked down in disgust at the slosh that he was being forced to walk through. There was no way that this place could be even vaguely good for your health – and he could only imagine the variety of unpleasant creatures you could run into. Oh, and unpleasant plants. He had learnt way too much about plants from Katie Brown, and had realised that they weren't always friendly. Mind you, nor had she been by the time whatever it was they had had, had dwindled into non-existence...

He sighed, and sloshed onwards. Beneath his raincoat and his boots he was positively sweltering. He had to wonder if he would be any worse off if he walked in shirt-sleeves like some of the others. Water dripped from every surface - branches, leaves, curling fern fronds - you only had to brush against something to be drenched to the bone. He peered at some of the leaves suspiciously. Didn't they have trees that stung you in this kind of place? And, though he would never admit it, he was not much more enamoured of the whole leech concept than Meaghan was.

The said palaeoanthopologist was dragging her boots through the mud before him, and at the head of the little troupe walked John, Elizabeth and some marines. Ronon and Teyla brought up the rear guard, and since Ronon believed McKay was walking too slowly, he would prod him occasionally with a stick that he was carrying for some mysterious-Ronon-reason. That is, _if _Ronon reasoned. McKay shot him a dirty look, but wasn't quite game to say anything. There was an evil glint in the Satedan's eyes today, and he just might push Rodney face-down in the mud.

McKay swore again, a little louder this time since his first attempt had got him no response, and snapped out to anyone willing to listen, 'Why exactly am _I _here?'

Elizabeth turned and said with narrowed eyes, 'Because, Doctor McKay, you knew that our little linguist had concealed information from me and yet you said nothing. I am getting a little sick of being left out of the loop. I thought this would be fitting punishment for you.'

Meaghan tripped up in shock, landing on her bare needs in the grot. She glanced back at McKay with wide apologetic eyes and mouthed 'so sorry!' She might not always like the man, but she genuinely hadn't meant to get him into trouble. She hadn't even realised that Elizabeth had taken in what she had said about him knowing. And dobbing was the one thing that from childhood had been instilled in her as a sin worse than – well – worse than just about anything else she could think of. So she felt bad, and tried to show that in her face as she picked herself up out of the mud, and wiped her hands on the seat of her shorts.

Rodney just glared at her bad-temperedly.

She gave up looking apologetic, and glared back. Typical. The first time he acts vaguely like a normal human being, she screws it up. She shook her head and went back to dragging her boots through the mud. It normally wasn't this bad, but it had poured heavily just before they'd set out. And of course, normally she was on her own and wasn't walking on a path that had just been churned up by a pack of Sheppard's monkeys. She muttered to herself. At first, when Doctor Weir had demanded to meet the Purified, she had bluntly refused. But when it had been made an order, she had hung her head and agreed. After all, she was way too conscious of the fact that she had pushed her luck to its absolute limits – and while people mightn't get sent home for making mistakes, they _might_ get sent home for really pinging off Weir.

But she had still frowned at the marines, and said to the Colonel with her hands on her hips, 'That's just plain stupid. What good do you think guns will do against these people? I mean, they blink and you have the plague. Which bit of that don't you get? Seriously, send them home.' But he'd disagreed, and now she winced at the sound of them thrashing their way through the dense undergrowth ahead of her.

They walked for about half an hour before they reached the clearing where Meaghan had always met with the Purified, and then she _insisted_ that they let her wait on her own. Teyla had agreed that this would probably be wise, and so she left them in the tree line and picked her way through the overgrown, tumbled walls to her favourite spot upon what had once been a staircase. Sitting, dirty knees pulled up to her chin, she picked at the drying mud on her legs and began the long wait.

Through the gap in the trees above her, the sun beat down on her floppy hat and she felt the freckled skin on her shoulders start to heat up. And she waited.

Two whole _hours_ they waited. She could hear the others grumbling, and talking, and laughing, and bickering (well, John and McKay bickering, anyway) at the tree line.

Her shoulders got sunburnt.

She had started humming random scraps of songs. _Puff The Magic Dragon_ was always good for this kind of situation.

Then a rustle in the tall grass around the ruins, and Smo appeared before her.

He bowed as she scrambled to her feet and reciprocated the gesture, then narrowed his eyes and asked suspiciously, 'Why have you brought these others? And armed?'

She half smiled, 'You already know the answer to that. I had no choice. Well, I suppose there's always a choice, but… They want to ask you about one of your Lantean artefacts. It's a power source. My boss would like to negotiate for it.'

He grinned at her. He was a small, wiry little old man, and reminded her vaguely of her grandfather – except that she _liked _Smo.

Now he glanced into the tree line. 'You _did_ tell them that those weapons are useless?'

She nodded, a smile twitching at her face. Despite what she knew he was capable of, somehow she couldn't bring herself to be frightened of him. 'Yes,' she said, 'I'm not sure they really understood though.'

He chuckled, moved his little finger ever so slightly, and then a shout of outrage and astonishment rang out from the others. She knew the old man well enough to guess exactly what he'd done, and the fact that Ronon's voice was louder than the others confirmed it. He had made all of their weapons disappear.

It was at that point that Elizabeth stepped into the clearing.

Smo turned to her and bowed gallantly, his eyes dancing in amusement. Elizabeth glanced questioningly at Meaghan, then bowed back. The old man looked at her critically, 'So. It was you who ordered the little one to bring these weaponed men here.'

Elizabeth quirked up her eyebrow in surprise, 'Yes – and – you speak English? But Doctor Monahan said she was learning your dialect.'

Smo twitched his nose, 'And so she is. But that is because she enjoys learning languages. We can speak anything you can.'

Meaghan grinned at his side, 'He's not exaggerating. I tried everything I knew. Even stuff that no-one on Earth has spoken for thousands of years. I've been meaning to bring some Linear A stuff out here and get him to translate it for me. It's uncanny.'

Invisible among the trees, Rodney snorted loudly and she heard him say with a grin in his voice to whoever was at his side, 'I'd like to see him speak some of _my _languages – java, quantum physics...'

Smo grinned, his teeth gleaming, 'Ah. Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay, self-confessed genius, hmm? I am more than capable of speaking your languages as well. Don't let my looks deceive you.' His ears waggled in amusement, 'That radio you carry? It is now capable of reaching the telephone of your sister Jeannie.'

There was silence for a moment (though Meaghan was too busy trying to process the fact that McKay's first name was _Meredith_, and nobody had thought to share that piece of priceless information with her!) and then the sound of McKay saying, 'Jeannie?! But that's not -' He entered the clearing, holding up his radio as though the sight of it offended him. 'That's not possible. I mean, that's seriously not possible. The distance alone, not to mention the -'

Smo just looked at him, and Meaghan couldn't help herself any longer. 'You're name's _Meredith?_'

McKay was about ready to explode.

Elizabeth meanwhile was growing a little impatient, and stepping in front of McKay, said firmly, 'I would really like to discuss this artefact which you have in your possession, and which we would like.'

The little old man gazed at her. 'The stand which powers the sphere that will let you obtain access to the place that you have come to called the Ancient Area 51. Yes.'

Even Meaghan managed to look startled at that, though Rodney was still too busy marvelling at his radio and forgetting to answer even his sister's voice that could be just heard from it.

Smo shrugged, 'You have nothing we want. Really,' he added with a kind smile, 'Nothing at all.'

* * *

_A/N: I know, I know, the whole radio-that-phones-earth thing is so very Doctor Who a là Christopher Eccleson... but I swear that similarity occured to me after I wrote it! Honest...! I plead cryptomnesia!_


	12. Negotiations

**Negotiations**

Elizabeth bit back a sigh. Why was it that since she had entered the Pegasus Galaxy, she was constantly trying to negotiate with people who didn't want anything? It was highly frustrating and flew in the face of everything she had experienced during the rest of her career. _Everybody_ wanted _something. _Or at least, on Earth they did.

'You have to understand how important this is to us,' she began to explain, 'Without this device...'

He was watching her sharply as though he already knew what she was planning to say. When her voice faltered, he nodded, head bobbing up and down like a magpie's. 'Yes. You see, you have to admit it even to yourself. Truth is, you want the stand so you can power the sphere, and you want to power the sphere because you hope to find weapons inside the artifical world. Correct?'

Elizabeth was still stalling, but Meaghan nodded at her with a shrug as though to say, _no point dissimulating; he already knows._ And so the leader inclined her head gracefully and admitted, 'Yes. But it _is_ important that we get those weapons. I can assure you that we aren't looking for them for the fun of it. We don't desire bloodshed. In fact, our aim is to put an end to it. You need to realise that there is a great danger out there called the Wraith. They threaten us, and this entire galaxy, and also the galaxy from which we came.'

Smo looked at her expressionlessly, 'You desire to wipe them all out, just as the Lanteans did.'

Elizabeth suddenly realised with horror the corner she had talked herself into. At heart, what he said was right, she couldn't deny it. And yet - that was the admission that had got the Lantean archaeologists killed. She bit her lip and thought hard.

The old man shook his head, 'Your silence betrays you. You _do _want to wipe them out. I can read it in your heart.'

Finally John couldn't take any more. He stepped into the clearing and exclaimed, 'Of _course_ we do! They're bloodsucking parasites whose only evolutionary aim is to suck the life out of every human being in the universe! What reason is there _not _to want to kill them? Now apparently you've had it all nice and dandy and wraith-free since you got here, but the rest of us don't have that liberty and I personally refuse to sit around on my laurels preaching non-violence while they slaughter everyone I care about. And so _yeah_, we'd like to wipe them out of existence and create a nice old hole in the eco-system.'

Elizabeth stared at him in shock and Meaghan had begun to nibble at the edge of her thumbnail. Smo turned and looked directly at her, 'This is the reason you did not wish us to meet your people. You knew they would betray themselves.' She stared at him wide-eyed, then took her thumb from her mouth and looked around the clearing. Looked at the defiance on Sheppard's face. At the way that Teyla had stepped ever so slightly closer to Ronon. At the marines who minus their weapons were shifting uncomfortably on the spot. At Rodney, still trying to work out his super-powered radio and oblivious to everything else.

'Balance,' she said, and then shoved her thumb back between her teeth.

Smo wriggled her ears and looked at her questioningly. It was vaguely irritating the way that he insisted on having a conversation at times like these, as though he didn't already know full well what was going on inside her head. Perhaps he thought it was polite.

Elizabeth breathed a sigh, and took the reins. 'Exactly. It's a question of balance. If the Wraith continue on as they have been doing, _all_ awake and _all_ culling at the same time, it might very well be them who commits genocide - twice over. First, we humans, and then themselves when their food source is gone.' She paused, decided it would be better not to look at John's face at this point, and said, 'What if we promised to not use any weapons we find in the sphere for genocidal purposes? What if we promised never to use anything we find there to wipe out an entire group of people... or all the Wraith?'

Atlantis' C.O. was making strangling sounds, and even Rodney had finally realised what was going on and was staring at her with his eyes boggling. She ignored them both, and continued, 'After all, there might be many other useful things obtained via the sphere. Beneficial things. Things that could be dangerous in their developmental stage, but that when perfected could do wondrous good - medical devices, scientific discoveries...'

Smo stared at her piercingly, seeing every fibre of her mind, and then to her surprise, he nodded. 'We can agree on this, on the condition that you are aware that if you break this agreement, you _will_ be destroyed. If you ever commit genocide in any manner with anything that you find inside the artificial world bound in the sphere, then we will raise our hand against you and release the death amongst you and none shall escape. No race must be completely wiped out. Not even the Wraith. But the this is right - balance may be sought.'

Rodney shuffled closer to John and whispered in amusement, 'Yeah, and considering they haven't even got a working gate, how exactly is that going to work?' Then he jumped about three feet in the air as his radio suddenly glowed with deep red heat. He dropped it, and stared at his burnt hand, and swore.

Smo just shrugged and said dryly, 'Believe me when I say that we will know.' Then he reached out, and healed the blistered red mess that was Rodney's hand.

Elizabeth nodded at him, not entirely sure that it was the deal she had hoped for but also quite clear on the fact that she wasn't going to get a better one. But as she agreed upon the pact with him on behalf of both their peoples, she wondered just how she was going to convince her superiors that it had really been necessary. She was pretty sure that they weren't going to be at all happy with it.

John, who as usual knew what she was thinking, smirked at her wryly, and commented, 'Well, if the IOC gives you hell, you can always tell them to send Woolsey here.' And despite herself, she had to chuckle at the thought.

Smo made a motion and suddenly the power source hung before them, suspended in the air. Rodney started, then reached out gingerly - as though afraid _it_ might burn him too - and then plucked it from space and hugged it to his chest. Then the old man turned to Meaghan and smiled broadly, 'You will leave now?'

She glanced at Elizabeth, who nodded firmly, and answered, 'Looks like it. Somehow I get the feeling that I'm going to be grounded in Atlantis for quite some time after what's gone down here.' She grinned at him, leaned in closer and whispered, 'Is she _very_ mad still?'

He glanced at Elizabeth, then back at Meaghan and smiled, 'I think you'll survive it.'

Then she hugged him and moved to leave - when suddenly he put his hand out and placed it square against her lower stomach, chanting loudly in their dialect. Meaghan blinked at him and felt a tingly warmth push through her, and stared in surprise at his words, but before she could speak, he was gone.

'What was that all about?' asked Elizabeth in a concerned voice. The thought of being touched by somebody with the power to spread the plague sent a shudder through her, despite her best attempts to be diplomatic in all circumstances. To her surprise, Meaghan blushed deeply and muttered, 'A blessing. He said I will have extraordinary children.'

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and smiled - John blinked - and Rodney snorted rudely. Then they all began the slow, slushy journey back to the puddlejumper. But before she left the clearing, Meaghan sketched the world at large a grateful bow. She had a sneaking suspicion that Smo would see it.

Oh...

... and she bent and picked up Rodney's discarded radio. She wasn't sure if it would still work at all after the whole glowing-and-burning thing, but if it did... Well, she rather fancied a chat with this sister of his. She hadn't even known he _had_ a sister. But sisters were always good to cultivate - after all, who knew better all those embarrassing childhood memories that are so perfectly designed for Rodney-baiting?


	13. Here Goes

**Here Goes... **

Elizabeth watched the scientists with a glint in her eyes. They had been standing there, arguing amongst themselves about whose fault it was that the description of the power source had never been sent to Alba, for a good five minutes. She glanced pointedly at her watch, a motion that Zelenka thankfully noticed, and he managed to elbow even a protesting McKay into silence. The men exchanged glances, _slightly_ embarrassed, and she shook her head, 'You can argue that out when you write the reports which, by the way, I expect on my desk by this time tomorrow. Now, I want one of you to tell me that this thing is actually going to _finally_ work.'

They had arrived back in Atlantis about fifteen minutes earlier, and gathered together in McKay's lab. Meaghan stood uncomfortably in a corner still wearing her shorts and grubby _Midnight Oil_ t-shirt, and stared at them all with something verging on awe. Somehow, they had all found the time to go, and shower, and get changed, and didn't look even remotely like they'd just been traipsing through the boggy-rainforest-from-hell (unless you counted the small smudge that Rodney had missed near his nose), while _she'd_ only just managed to go and grab a bite to eat. She looked down at her freckled legs and the streaks of dried mud still clinging on them, sighed, and wasn't sure what to make of the fact that nobody seemed to have expected anything else from her.

John was watching with baited breath as McKay placed the power source carefully on a bare bench. Then there was a moment's silence as everyone's attention was turned to the sphere that he now held in his hands. It didn't seem possible that it could hang in any shape or form inside the ring, but even as McKay released it cautiously from his grasp, it shimmered a deep, luminescent blue. A little burst of light pulsed out from it heart and then the sphere started to whir inside the ring at an ever-increasing rate. Rodney grinned proudly, as the whole device had been of his construction, then turned and looked at the sunburnt palaeoanthropologist. He grinned at how odd she seemed dressed like that in Atlantis - it hadn't been _too _strange on Alba, come to think of it - but actually managed to restrain himself from making any narky comments (he suspected that Elizabeth might snap if he made the girl chuck a tantrum and _he _had no desire to be in her bad books too) and said simply, 'Your turn.'

She grimaced when everyone turned and watched her expectantly. 'I still don't see why it has to be me-' she began, but when McKay just looked down his nose at her, she swallowed and said, '_Fine._ Exactly what I did last time? But -- it's spinning. Won't I knock it out of whack or something?'

He rolled his eyes, 'Presumably not, or else it wouldn't be made like that, would it? Be a man, Monahan.'

She glared at him sourly, then gingerly stretched her hand into the blue circle of light and, her fingers gracing the surface as it spun frantically, said suddenly, 'Hang on, what about those codes?'

'All being dealt with,' answered Zelenka reassuringly.

She looked relieved, then laughed a little nervously and asked, 'Um, this is maybe a stupid question, but - who am I sending exactly?'

Elizabeth met John's gaze across the room and nodded in resignation. She had not even the slightest desire to see him enter that artificial world again, even if it was what had finally pushed them into accepting their feelings for one another, but she knew the potential advantages that this could bring them - even with the anti-genocide clause. And of course she knew that he wouldn't take no for an answer on this one. Still, it scared her a little.

Then she made her decision and said calmly, 'Colonel Sheppard and his usual team will be going, Doctor Monahan. But wait just a moment.'

Meaghan obeyed, though her eyes were fixed, more than a little disturbed, upon her blue-glowing hand. Which was why she was the only one in the lab who didn't stare in surprise as the leader of Atlantis crossed the room in a few decisive steps and came to a halt in front of the Colonel. She had made up her mind that it was high time she got over her own petty issues. But though she was breaking no real rules, she still pinkened a little as she said with her eyes locked on his, 'Be safe,' and then kissed him long and deep.

She forced herself to focus upon the elated, smug grin plastered across John's face as she gave Meaghan the go-ahead,rather than looking at her smirking audience. Being the leader hadn't saved her from the wolf-whistles.

Meaghan looked up at the noise, guessed with a smile at what she had missed, then gave McKay a tiny little wave with the fingers of her free hand, and watched as he and the rest of SGA-1 vanished right before her eyes into the Ancient Area 51.


	14. A Picnic Promised

**A Picnic Promised **

It was a stroke after midnight and Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard sat on a stool on the balcony, one of his legs resting on the railing, and his guitar in his hands. He was absently strumming scraps of tunes he knew, a sort of collage of sound - simply enjoying the feel of the music under his fingertips, and watching the black waves of the ocean reflect the city lights.

It was full moon and on the East Pier someone was throwing a party. Occasionally strains of their music would waft up to compete with his as the wind changed directions. He remembered getting an invite, though he couldn't recall from whom, but he was feeling too laid-back to bother. Not that he wasn't usually up for a bit of a shindig, but... he already had other plans. He balanced his guitar on his lap and reached for the bottle of beer on the stool next to his, and took a slow mouthful. No, tonight he didn't feel like a party anyway. He was more... poetically inclined. He grinned at the thought, and as though to negate it, put the bottle back and started playing the upbeat tempo of a Spanish piece. It wasn't really the right guitar for it, but still...

He heard the door slide open and shut again, then the sound of a pair of shoes being taken off and tossed against the wall near the door. There was a scuff mark there, on the wall, where the shoes hit it every single night in exactly the same place. He strummed more quietly. Heard the sound of running water in the bathroom sink, the noise of a cupboard opening and shutting. Then the ever-so-soft pad of her bare feet coming onto the balcony. She put her still-damp hands on his shoulders and he heard her breathe a deep sigh as she mentally forced herself to unwind. Then she picked up his beer, took a tiny sip, and, still holding it, sat on the stool where it had been.

For the first time he looked at her. The autumn air was crisp and he wondered that her feet weren't cold. She had rolled up her slacks and pulled on a soft green long-sleeved top instead of the shirt she wore for work. Her hair was damp and dripped water onto her shoulders. She had put her head under the tap, that was the water he'd heard running. Her eyes were shut and she rested back against the wall. Then she felt his gaze on her and she smiled, opened her eyes, and leant over and kissed him slowly and, from that angle slightly awkwardly, so that she ended up laughing at her effort.

Holding his guitar with one hand, he reached out with the other and wiped dripping water from her forehead. 'Rough day?'

She smiled, then caught herself yawning, and chuckled, 'No more than usual. Though I spent most of it writing cover letters for your primary reports about the Ancient Area 51. To say that the SGC will be pleased is, I think, an understatement - they might even get over the heart attacks they had about the no-genocide clause!' She smiled, 'Tomorrow I'm letting loose McKay and his team of scientists, though I suppose you'll be wanting to go along for the ride.' He nodded with a smile and she continued, 'I don't think I've seen Rodney this excited. But _I'm_ just glad to have you back in one piece.' Then she arched an eyebrow and ran her hand along the smooth, beautifully coloured guitar and commented with a contented smile, 'You know, once upon a time it was the women who sat up waiting for their men folk to get home from work. And I thought you had a shift tonight.'

He played a cheerful little riff and said, 'What galaxy do _you _come from? And yes, technically I do, but I swapped.'

Elizabeth looked at him questioningly. He smiled, and asked, 'Have you eaten?'

She had to think about that. 'Yes. On the way.'

He stood up, put his guitar in its case and then leant it in the corner. 'That, Weir, does not count as eating. I thought _you_ were supposed to be the one who understood the art of gourmet food.' He had on his most devilish smile, 'Come on, first we are going to give you a shower and wake you up again, and then I'm going to get that picnic of mine that you promised me untold months ago.'

She looked guilt-stricken at the mention of the picnic, but before she could start apologising, he put a finger on her lips, 'Uh-uh, shush. No complaining, no excuses, in fact no talking at all unless it's to tell me what a wonderful, amazing, handsome man I am, and that you are just _dying _for a candlelit picnic with the best views in the whole city.'

His touch still had that old affect and she felt her body turn to liquid. Suddenly, she wasn't so tired any more. She stood up, wrapped her arms around him, and exclaimed mischievously, 'Oh, your wish is my command, Lieutenant Colonel, sir! _Of_ _course_ I worship the very ground upon which you walk, hadn't you noticed?' Then she tilted her head slightly to one side, and said more seriously, in that particular, deep voice he could never have too much of, 'So tell me. This shower you said you were going to give me...?'

* * *

_A/N: A thousand hugs to everyone who reviewed this story... you know who you are, but I'll list you anyway just because I think you are such wonderful specimens of humanity!!! SenseOfTime, lia-finn, Cptn.Suz, Suzotchka1, jasminesmommy, E.Nagrom and Dimonah Tralon. And also all the people who put my on their alerts (man, does that send me to my happy place!!) and as for you - yes you - who put this one on their fav list, I think you are quite simply the best damn thing since sliced bread!!! _

_I've decided that this is the last chapter of this story. I am just a sucker for natural endings, and to me this seems to be one. BUT never fear (um, I don't know if any of you were, but nevermind that, I'm being dramatic...), I have decided to make this and Liz's Email into a trilogy (yah! how clever of me), and am right now trying to get my head around the plot for a third story (yes, I guess that would make it a trilogy, ho hum), which I will be calling - surprisingly enough - Ancient Area 51. Hm, yes, there goes my weekend. So when you see it, you know what it is!_


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